


Lost: Young Blue Dragon

by gloss



Category: POKEMON Detective Pikachu (2019)
Genre: (literally), Fish out of Water, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-19 05:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: As Tim gets used to life in Ryme City, he has a few loose ends to take care of. Next up: Magikarp/Gyarados.





	Lost: Young Blue Dragon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FleetSparrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetSparrow/gifts).



On his way home from the temp agency, Tim walks behind a tall woman wearing an enormous knapsack. The knapsack looks like an old-fashioned round diving helmet. There are three portholes, one on each side, through which he sees a juvenile Magikarp floating in clear blue water. Its scales nearly glow like banked fire, and its single visible eye winks cheekily at him.

"He has a bigger tank at home," the woman tells him while they wait for the light to change. "This is just for getting around."

"I didn't think —" Tim is learning, again and again, how readily Ryme City residents want to explain their partnerships and make clear that their Pokémon are respected. "He's really handsome."

Her smile in response is sudden and gorgeous. He's still smiling like a doofus back when he realizes the light changed a while ago.

*

"Where do lost Pokémon go?" Tim asks Harry over dinner. 

They're still working out this whole _living together_ concept. Harry's approach to meals is, to put it kindly, eccentric. Tonight, dinner consists of a large bowl of cheese puffs, two beers, one reheated burrito and two cups of instant ramen. Pikachu sits in the middle of the table nomming down a multiberry poffin. Tim reaches over to brush the crumbs off his belly, and Pikachu scoots back, holding the poffin out of Tim's reach.

Honestly, there's probably more nutrition in a poffin than Harry's meals.

"What's that?" Harry asks. He's absorbed in something on his phone.

"I should do dinner," Tim says. "I'm not a bad cook."

"You don't like my food?" 

Pikachu chirps supportively and, smiling, Harry reaches over to scritch his chin.

Tim presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. "I love your food. Eating like a feral child out of a 7-11 dumpster has always been my dream."

"Thanks, bud!"

Pikachu tiptoes closer to Tim's plate and deposits an energy bar there. _Thank you,_ Tim mouths and Pikachu butts his head against the side of Tim's hand.

"Where do lost Pokémon go?" Tim asks again, when Harry has set down his phone and is digging into the burrito.

Harry grins, mouth open to show off the mess of beans and cheese.

"Gross," Tim tells him.

Waggling his eyebrows, enjoying his own dumb joke, Harry swallows, then gets more serious. Fairly serious. He's not very good at consistent seriousness. "Lost Pokémon? Like separated from their partners?"

"No," Tim replies. He knows they're to be found at the Reunion Centre down on the south side. He interviewed for a clerk job there, but he's still waiting to hear back, not that he's holding his breath. "More like...never had a partner? Maybe got caught up in some underground shit? Shenanigans, I mean. Underground criminal shenanigans."

Harry puts on his sensitive, thoughtful Dad face and pats Tim's shoulder. "You can swear here, buddy. You're a grown-up."

"Kind of the only one," Tim mutters.

"Excuse you, but Detective Pikachu is a _very_ mature gentleman."

"Fair enough."

"So, criminal Pokémon, that's what you're wondering about?"

"No, more like..." Tim drinks some beer. It's not very good, but maybe it will make following Harry's loop-de-loops of logic and association easier. "I want to know what happened to the Pokémon in the fighting ring. The Charizard and the Gyarados."

"Oh! Why didn't you say so?"

"I just did?"

"I'll ask Yoshida!" Harry grabs his phone so quickly that it slips from his hand. With a melancholy _cheep_ , Pikachu jumps off the table to retrieve the phone. They both get so excited when an opportunity to help arises. Maybe it's that Harry gets mega-excited, and Pikachu is just very loyal; Tim isn't quite sure yet. Their eagerness is incredibly touching, but it can also make him feel very awkward. He tries to be careful and space out any questions that might seem to be requests for help, lest they get sick of him. 

Harry has a lot to make up for; they both do. Tim just wants to take this slow and not make a big deal out of every little thing.

"Reunion Centre," Harry says when he finishes texting with Yoshida. "Or one of the private rescues."

"Okay," Tim says, "Thanks."

"The rescues are around Ryme Wharf, I can take you there tomorrow." Harry slurps up a good half of one cup of ramen and circles his free hand impatiently until he can start talking again. "Unless you've got plans? If you're busy, just say so, no harm, no foul, we can always do it some other time. Or not at all. Maybe this is a Tim-thing I shouldn't be pushy about."

Tim waits another couple seconds after Harry stops, just in case that was merely a pause for breath. Sometimes, like now, they can be so careful around each other that it verges on the ridiculous.

"Let's go together," Tim says. "On the way back, we can get some groceries."

"Gro-cer-ies?" Harry repeats slowly and tilts his head. "What is this _gro-cer-ies_?"

"Very funny, _Dad_." Tim cleans his plate into the compost container. When he turns back around, Harry is beaming at him and high-fiving the air.

"Dad," Harry says to Pikachu. "It's got a nice ring to it, right?"

*

He has had a couple dreams about Mewtwo chiding him for not taking care of the Pokémon who helped him and Lucy. A few times, Mewtwo was so angry at Tim that he couldn't speak.

Not tonight, luckily. Those dreams leave him soaked in sweat and breathless.

*

The next morning is cloudy and cool. Harry fusses a bit about Tim not wearing a jacket, but soon enough they're tossing back coffee and danish at the Hi-Hat and planning their route.

"Yoshida says there are a couple different rescues, not really competing, just offering different approaches," Harry says, checking his notes. He must have made the notes after Tim turned in. "Figured we'd start down there and work our way toward the wharf, sound good?"

"Sure," Tim says. "You're the investigator."

Harry grins at that, then ducks his head. "I do okay."

By the time they've made it down to the southwest part of the city, the clouds have burned off and the air is warming up.

"Humid, even." Tim flaps the neck of his shirt to cool off. "Sure am glad I'm not wearing a heavy jacket. That would suck."

Pikachu burbles from Harry's shoulder and Harry shakes his head. "Funny. The thing is, though, I look good."

"Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that."

The first rescue they try has a tiny front office, starkly minimalist in that way that probably takes three times as much money as you'd think. There's just one woman who looks like a ballerina sitting behind a desk with a tablet in front of her. She says they haven't taken in any Gyarados, ever, let alone in the last month.

"You're sure?" Tim and Harry ask simultaneously.

She narrows her eyes. "I think I'd remember something like that."

It's the same story at the next two places. They have even ritzier offices — at the second one, Pikachu brews himself a single espresso at the machine while they're waiting — but no leads.

The last place doesn't sound or look like a rescue. The others had names like "Second Chance" and "Forever Partners", but this one is simply "2187 Ltd." On a narrow buzzer. It's down a crooked mews right in the warehouse district proper. No one answers the buzzer Tim rings, not for a long time. Pikachu asks "pika?" a few times before Harry hushes him.

Tim's about ready to give up when finally a garage door, big enough to admit a panel van, rattles open beside them.

"You found us okay?" An older guy — not as old as Harry, not as young as Tim — sticks his head out and pushes messy curls back off his forehead. He's darkly tanned and handsome, but also seems terrifically frazzled. "Thank Arceus you're here! C'mon!"

Tim hauls himself up into the loading area, then gives Harry a hand up. Inside, the warehouse is an enormous empty space, with windows high up along the back wall and a skylight taking up nearly the whole ceiling. Large pens and cages are arrayed below the windows. More than anything, it looks like Pokémon day care, with tons of toys and happily squeaking monsters. 

The entire other half of the space, however, is silent. A coiled Gyarados sleeps in a sun beam while three lawn sprinklers keep him moist. Its whiskers move slowly as it snores. Looking at it is stepping out of time: it is ancient, and powerful, and nothing familiar.

"Do you think it's —?" Tim starts to ask Pikachu. A Bulbasaur with a bandaged front leg and empty shell garden toddles up to them. Pikachu slides down Harry's arm and jumps to the floor to chat with the 'saur.

"I have to stop doing that," Tim murmurs to Harry. "Talking to him like he can answer."

"Nah," Harry says, just as quietly. "He likes it."

This close, the Gyarados's scales, each as big as one of Tim's hands, glitter in about a thousand different shades of blue. Like sun catching insect-wings, the scales flicker and shift. Up around its face, they're paler, frequently almost white as glaciers, but along its spine, they reach the dark indigo of midnight in the country. Keeping a careful distance from both dragon and water spray, Tim walks nearly halfway around Gyarados before bumping into the handsome guy who let them in.

"We're short-handed and then some," the guy says as he backs out from a doorway with clipboards and file folders in his arms. "You're a lifesaver!"

"You don't even know me," Tim can't help but point out. 

The guy shrugs. "So we'll put you on probation, see how it goes?"

Tim nods, then looks back at the Gyarados. "This is the one from the fight club, right?"

"Yeah." The guy curses under his breath and spits. "Vicious asses."

"That's for sure," Tim says. He reaches out and presses his hand to the dragon's back. Its hide is surprisingly soft, strangely pliable; as it breathes, his hand rises and falls. 

Gyarados's massive head lifts and it turns to look at Tim. It looks slightly curious but mostly sleepy with its slitted eyes and half-open mouth. Tim doesn't know if it recognizes him or not. That's probably not the point, however.

"It likes you," the guy says.

Tim snorts. "Don't know about that."

"Well, the feeling's obviously mutual."

A tiny Dedenne, bright orange as a roasted yam and half the size of Harry's Pikachu, skitters out of the office behind them and dashes up the guy's leg. Laughing, the guy pushes all the papers into Tim's arms so he can hold the Dedenne in his palm and listen to its urgent report.

"They do good work here," Harry says quietly while Tim crouches down to organize the papers. "Yoshida says they're trustworthy."

"Yeah?"

"Not in it just for the fundraising, blah blah." Harry peers around. "Where's Pika?"

"Playing with that Bulbasaur, I think," Tim gestures vaguely without looking up. 

If the state of this paperwork is any indication, he got here just in time.


End file.
